Palpable vs Discernible - What's the difference?
palpable | discernible | Synonyms |
Capable of being touched, felt or handled; touchable, tangible.
* (William Shakespeare), Hamlet , act 5, sc. 2:
* 1838 , (Edgar Allan Poe), "Ligeia":
* 1894 , (Bret Harte), "The Heir of the McHulishes" in A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories :
Obvious or easily perceived; noticeable.
*
, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=5
, passage=Although the Celebrity was almost impervious to sarcasm, he was now beginning to exhibit visible signs of uneasiness,
* 1913 , (Sax Rohmer), The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu ch. 24:
* 1916 , (Kathleen Norris), The Heart of Rachael , ch. 7:
(medicine) That can be detected by palpation.
Possible to discern; detectable or derivable by use of the senses or the intellect.
:
* 1821 ,
*
*:So this was my future home, I thought!Backed by towering hills, the but faintly discernible purple line of the French boundary off to the southwest, a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.
As adjectives the difference between palpable and discernible
is that palpable is capable of being touched, felt or handled; touchable, tangible while discernible is possible to discern; detectable or derivable by use of the senses or the intellect.palpable
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- Osric: A hit, a very palpable hit.
- I had felt that some palpable although invisible object had passed lightly by my person.
- The next morning the fog had given way to a palpable , horizontally driving rain.
- Her voice, her palpable agitation, prepared us for something extraordinary.
- No use in raging, in reasoning, in arguing. No use in setting forth the facts, the palpable right and wrong.
Synonyms
* (capable of being touched) tangible, touchable * (obvious or easily perceived) manifest, noticeable, patentdiscernible
English
Adjective
(en adjective)John Duncan], [http://books.google.com.au/books?id=En58zhD3SWUC Duncan's Travels
- To have demolished and rebuilt the walls, would have been a very costly expedient, and as the least of two evils, the painter's brush was resorted to; here and there however, above some of the windows, the black wreathings of the smoke are still discernible through the white covering.
